Frequently a keen golfer finds himself without access to a golf course, and in that event a driving range can be quite satisfactory because full swinging and ball-travel facilities are achievable. Thus, golf driving ranges have become popular to allow a person to practice in company with other golfers who take up positions in a row of driving positions and then drive balls in directions normal to that row. Such a golf range has the disadvantage that it requires a large land area and is most popular if located in a city region where the cost of land for such purposes is prohibitive. Also, the use of a driving range can be curtailed if the weather is bad, while additionally the retrieval of struck balls can be tedious and time-consuming.
Some golfers find preferable the use of net systems in which a golfer can drive balls from a mat or the like into a semi-enclosure, the balls striking a back net which catches the balls or causes them to drop to the ground, while side and top nets prevent the golf balls from straying from the local vicinity. Such net systems do not require large areas of expensive land and make ball retrieval easy, but most golfers do not find them very satisfactory because it is difficult to envisage or estimate the distance which the struck ball might have travelled.
Various portable devices have been proposed generally to assist golfers to practice the driving of golf balls, but most are inefficient or cause early loss of interest. For example, a practice kit is known in which a practice ball is connected by a flexible cord to a frame which may be secured to the ground by pegs or "anchored" on a floor by a suitable weight, a spring or elasticised cord portion being incorporated to limit travel of the struck ball and to cause it to return. However, such kits have become currently unpopular because of the considerable number of accidents involving balls returning to strike the person practising driving.